


trompe l'oeil

by vegetas



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Big Fights & Bigger Feelings, Can't swing a dead cat without hitting an inferiority complex, Crossdressing, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fate & Destiny, First Kiss (to a degree), Gen, Late Night Revelations, M/M, Model James Fitzjames, Patent 70s Genderfluidity, Photographer Francis Crozier, Retro Pastiche Abounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27552490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vegetas/pseuds/vegetas
Summary: Francis Crozier and James Fitzjames share more than a few creative differences.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier & Sir James Clark Ross, Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames, Sophia Cracroft & Captain Francis Crozier
Comments: 17
Kudos: 36
Collections: Fall Fitzier Exchange





	trompe l'oeil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [burningfreeze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/burningfreeze/gifts).



> i have a deep love and interest in the mysterious world and history of haute couture and fashion photography, so when saw this prompt it was too good to be true. i hope you enjoy this sincere labor of love. it's a little stranger and more esoteric than other things i've written for the terror, but somehow/???? it's just the Mood. 
> 
> i've set this fic in a nebulous time following the explosion of the london fashion scene in the 1960s, so please excuse any inaccuracies and any fudging of history on my part and suspend any disbelief as necessary!

> Trompe-L'œil _  
>   
> _ _French; "to deceive the eye"_
> 
> Is this an ambush?  
> Are you sent here to ruin my evening?  
> And possibly my entire life?  
>   
>  _Phantom Thread (2017)_

  
VOGUE - BRITAIN 

HANOVER SQUARE  
MAYFAIR  
LONDON  
  


MARCH COVER - STUDIO I  
  


CALL TIME (ALL) 

8:00 A.M.

SCHEDULE  
  
8 - 0900 WARDROBE  
10 SHOOT BRIEF  
11- 1400 SHOOT:  
  
CLOSE, MID-LENGTH, FULL _  
  
_PHOTOGRAPHY  
FRM Crozier

ASST. MR. CROZIER  
Thomas Jopson  
  
STYLING  
 ~~James Fairholme~~ EDWARD LITTLE  
  
GROOMING  
George H. Hodgson  
  
TALENT  
Bella Santini  
James Fitzjames

Francis woke with a gasp. In the flurry of his hands moving suddenly on the table top he knocked over the glass left from the night before. 

It fell and shattered with one loud incredible _crack_ , like a gunshot, that made his heart leap madly and the sudden intrusion of light and Thomas’ form eclipsing it in the doorway a greater injury. 

  
“Door closed at all times!” He roared, out of ingrained habit, his body bursting fully into wakefulness on instinct. 

“Good morning sir,” Thomas said after a beat of repentant silence when Francis realized who it was, and why for and he diminished back into himself. His voice was undisturbed crisp and clean as a pressed napkin, and paying no mind at all to Francis’ outburst, or the state of the room or the state of the glass. 

“What time is it,” Francis managed to ask when his embarrassment waned, his tongue thick and lolling the words in his cottony mouth. He straightened in the chair, one of its castors squeaking. 

“Just after six o’clock. I’ve got the water running very hot upstairs. I thought you might want to freshen up.” 

Francis rubbed his face, the first dull throbs of a headache pressing hot against his fingertips. 

“What about the car?”

“The car will be here at seven forty-five.” 

He nodded his head. Thomas invaded the room, carefully closing upended bottles and tidying the mess, his steps quick and efficient till they slowed. 

“Are these of Mrs. Ross? The bridal portraits?”

“Yes,” Francis replied, rolling back from the desk and standing shakily. He’d been up all night, working on them. 

“Tremendous,” Thomas said quietly, and Francis said nothing in return. 

“Careful here, there’s broken glass…” He pointed vaguely at the corner of the desk and began tottering towards the door, his slippers scraping along with each step. “You’ll need a torch.”

  
“Of course, sir.” 

“Bring me toast,” he added, when he reached the door. He hesitated, fingers fumbling on the handle. “And a tablet in water.” 

“I’ll have it right up,” Thomas chirped. Then Francis was struggling the door open, blinking like a badger stumbling from its winter den. The expanse of the studio yawned in front of him, dead silent and perilously empty compared to the cramped quarters of the darkroom. The light of pre-dawn falling from the sky windows was blueish and cold. It was so still and frozen gleaming off the glass frames on their white walls and small drifts of sheet covered equipment he half expected his movements to be muffled, as in snow, but every step he took on the way to his apartments was maddeningly loud, echoing all through the building and complex, clanging in his sore head like church bells.

*

He stood a long time in the shower, the scalding water screaming through the pipes turning him lobster red as it pounded down on his neck and shoulders, remembering the dream. He was taking the bridal portraits of Annie again. Darling little Annie, looking like a small girl trying on her mother’s opera gloves and swathed in Saint Laurent’s custom damasked cotton the color of fresh cream. Each time he went to look through the viewfinder it was not Annie, but Sophia.

  
Sophia, crowned with stephanotis, skin pearly and beatific shining back at him. He’d been up all night developing the pictures, and as he stared down at them, drunk, he dared them to reveal the truth like some horrid divinator bent over his scrying bowl. 

He ate the toast Thomas delivered in the midst of his reverie with wet hands, and swallowed the gritty gulp of aspirin in one go. His stomach latched violently onto the former, curling around the lump of bread that now sat in him like a clenched fist. The rest of his organs were grateful for the attempt, he figured. It would be an hour before he could determine if it was worth the effort. 

By the time he emerged from the cloudy bathroom with his hair combed it was nearly half past seven. Thomas had done the thinking for him, as usual. His uniform was laid out on the still pristinely made bed in its plastic garment bag, freshly laundered: black slacks, white shirt, black jacket. Only the tie was left apart, lying limp as a dead snake on the bureau in front of the mirror. 

He reached over the suit for the ashtray on the nightstand, heaving it heavily onto his lap with one hand, cursing at the dust of gray that slid out onto the garment bag. He brushed it off brutishly, the cellophane rucking and rustling. 

“Does anyone even wear suits to photoshoots anymore,” he muttered, glaring at the ensemble as Thomas appeared from thin air, scurrying into the still steaming bathroom to take the dish and glass away while Francis sat listlessly on the bed in his robe, fishing for the carton of cigarettes and lighter habitually in the pocket.

“Of course! It’s very professional,” Thomas said, pausing in the center of his bedroom. Francis gave him a heavy-lidded look of dismay, grimacing around the cigarette now tucked in the corner of his mouth at Thomas’ neat black turtleneck and smart cut trousers. 

“You’re not even wearing one,” he murmured, eyes falling shut, hand finding his forehead again. Thomas was reaching down and tucking a bit of the off-white sheet back under the mattress where it poked from beneath Francis’ fraying counterpane, the glass and dish clacking slightly as he balanced them. 

  
“Well,” a smile flitted over the younger man’s face and he straightened back up, “I’m not the photographer, sir. Only his assistant.”

Francis grunted. 

“The car will be here in ten minutes,” Thomas said as he turned to take his leave. “Is there anything else you’d like packed up? I’ve taken the liberty of choosing the OM, since it’s what Ross uses.”

_Because I taught him how to use it_ , Francis found his mouth opening bitterly to say. The first series, of course. Not the sexier dressed down version he promoted these days. To his amazement none of these were the words that slipped out. 

“The Pentax as well.”

Thomas stopped mid-step. It was a perfectly reasonable response to the request, and one that Francis shared. He had no idea what possessed him to request it. Francis hadn’t lugged the Pentax out for a very long time. The system itself was also just that - something you had to _lug_ about. It was a bear of a camera, far burlier than its considerably more nimble SLRs, the Olympus being one of them. 

The metal and mirrors gave it a heft that few were willing to work with. One had to be strong, physically, to put up with the beast for hours at a time, strong to change the lenses manually and hold the wires in place, stronger still to coax the delicacy out of it. For many years it served as his exclusive, beloved, instrument.

Francis took a harried draw of the cigarette starting to smolder on the end of his finger. 

“The Pentax, yes, I’ll get that one.” 

Thomas closed the door, leaving Francis alone. He sucked greedily at the cigarette for a few moments in the quiet, the nicotine making its way through his system. When it was spent he crushed it in the ashtray and slid it aside, finally standing. The phone rang halfway through doing up his shirt, scaring another curse out of him and leaving him with his buttons uneven. 

With his sleeves flopping at his wrists he reached for it, the tangled ball of cord catching as he lifted the receiver, nearly knocking the whole thing off the table where it sat. 

“Yes?” 

“I’m glad you picked up. I was calling to say that the car will be there soon, it’s only just left.”

Francis felt his throat close and cleared it harshly, his stiff hands working at his cuffs to keep them busy.  
  
“Very good,” he replied. 

“Will you be ready? I told him to get there earlier, but they’re of no help. Drivers, I mean.”

“I’ll be ready, yes.” He struggled with the tiny button, biting the inside of his cheek, the phone now cradled against his shoulder. 

  
“Oh, there was another matter, an adjustment to the call sheet. I wanted to let you know before you got here and save you any shock - Edward Little will be styling today, instead of Mr. Fairholme. He’s a bit like you. Peevish of his own work.”

Francis’ mouth instinctively tightened against the sensation of ice water being dumped on him. In one swoop the reason for her call became heinously clear. 

“I’ll take that as flattery,” Francis said, “but of course, that’s no matter. I look forward to meeting him. In the strained silence that stretched between them he felt her weigh the risk of saying something more, or call him out. She knew him well enough - far too well - to diagnose his hangover, no matter how he attempted to mask it now. 

“That aside - I can’t wait to see you, Francis. It really has been much too long,” was all she eventually replied with and Francis’ face went slack from its taught pinch of frustration. She was being diplomatic, as ever. She even refrained from mentioning the wedding, knowing to spare him that. 

“Same to you, my dear,” he said, looking at the carpet. A beat in the wake of how inauthentic it felt now. 

“I believe I hear the car,” he lied, and she bid him her quiet goodbye just as he slammed the receiver back in the cradle.

*

He had to put his glasses on to read the call sheet that Thomas passed him in the car, careful not to let his cigarette catch it as the driver lurched them along. He scanned it, noting the scratched out name of Jim Fairholme now replaced with _Edward Little_ \- Burberry’s newly onboarded creative director - in Thomas’ chicken scratch, and the rest with half as much interest. 

George was unsurprising, and favorable. He did good work and only got in the way enough to be obnoxious instead of infuriating, unlike other hair and makeup artist’s he’d encountered. 

On further consideration Little’s impromptu appearance wasn’t so disarming either. His debut collection was the one being shot, which was enough to unchain someone like him from his sewing machine and lure them out of the atelier for an afternoon. He hadn’t met the man but the news filtered down to even his shadowy depths. 

He was a good tailor, one of the finest they said, which showed in his work. Redesigning a trench coat may somewhat be like redesigning the wheel, Francis supposed, but what he’d come back with was quite good. Sharp clean lines met with precise technicality that whispered more of the brand’s militaristic history - wasp waisted 19th century naval officers garbed in gabardine and the proud Great War gentry of Leyendecker’s copy, iconic ‘D’ rings dangling grenades from their cinch-tied belts - more than the slouching pathetic salarymen clinging to bars on the tube in coats greyed by pollution and dirty rainwater. 

“I’m surprised Halston let his poodle off its leash,” he mumbled, tapping his ash out the cracked window, looking up from the last name. _James Fitzjames_. One couldn’t hardly open a tabloid without seeing him splashed across at least two pages of him flouncing around New York, racking up appearances with the _celebrite du jour_ of Studio 54, Mudd Club, and the jet sets of Max’s Kansas City in some insane get up. Barrow’s lettuce jersey or, most recently, hot house red satin to mark him as the latest neophyte in Halston’s glamorous _cabine._

“Seems there was trouble in paradise,” Thomas elucidated. He was sitting with his legs crossed one over the other on the other side of the limousine, flipping through a copy of _Harper’s Bazaar_ , and looked up at him just over his sunglasses. Wordlessly he turned the pages to him. It took a moment for Francis to see what he was hinting at, but there, in a small picture jammed around an article was a picture of the lithe, tan, model with his chin length brown hair rakishly mussed cozied up in the front row of a Charles James show. 

Francis scoffed and folded the call sheet in half, thumbing at the deep creases in his brow. 

“That man’s loyalty extends about as far as you can throw him,” he laughed mirthlessly, shaking his head. 

Thomas went back to his magazine, licking the tip of his finger and thumbing through it. 

“If I were a woman today I woudn’t bother with anyone save De La Renta,” he sighed, stopping on a page featuring a woman in billowing head-to-toe chiffon. Francis smirked. 

“Treasonous,” he dared, with another flick of ash out the window. “What about the _heir apparent_?”

“Givenchy lost his war,” Thomas answered, unruffled. He touched the edge of his glasses to keep them from slipping. “Until Balenciaga can start designing from the grave, or possesses someone, to the winner go the spoils.” He flicked another page.  
  
  
“The king is dead, long live the king,” Francis breathed. 

*

He prided himself on the functional facets of his vices, but he no longer relished the astonishment on Sophia’s face when she registered he hadn’t failed her. 

“Francis,” she said, shaking off the stupor of seeing him and gathering him to her as he rounded the reception desk. The peppery smell of her perfume dusted him with each careful kiss on his cheek. She was exquisite in her Chanel set, emerald green with silk scarf ascot peacocking over her clean white blouse, hair flipping out from her ears in fat curls. Every inch the face of British Vogue, as she’d always deserved to be.

  
He felt the eyes of her gamine staff on him, the muddying effect of their appraisal and their speculation as they stood about in their Von Furstenberg. What to make of the old man coming to call, what obsolete realm their fearless leader dredged him up from, this artifact of a world that they’d long surpassed. Once he would have knelt at her feet in reverent supplicance if she asked it of him, would have haunted the chic contemporary halls of her domain like a stern abbot and wrung every gift and offering he had left from himself, but now all he carried were his grudges like a tax to be tallied. 

The voyeurs were in for nothing between them. This was an accounting session; a squaring of the books. The simplest terms of any model’s contract and nothing more: time for photographs. 

“Everyone’s arrived, miraculously,” she smiled, nodding at Thomas who inclined his head and followed behind them as she led Francis arm-and-arm to the lift bank. 

“Have you heard from Jackie at all since they left for Hawaii?” The question was benign, made as she pressed the button for the floor, the doors rolling shut. She didn’t look at him, but he could feel her eyes on him in the reflection cast on the burnished metal and mirrors set into the elevator’s walls just the same. 

“I haven’t. I took it as a good sign.” 

“He phoned a few days ago. He was so pleased with you for doing this. When he suggested you fill in for him, I wasn’t sure what I would say, I know how you feel about your work in publications -”

“Sir,” Thomas interjected and Francis jerked, turning to Thomas. “Would you like me to set up the Olympus first, or the Pentax?”

“You brought my old friend?” Sophia chirped, leaning around his body to look at the cases Thomas rested at his feet, and for a split second he saw her as he used to see her: the daisy gone to full flower under the bald light of perfect timing. 

“The Olympus,” Francis said to Thomas. Her smile schooled itself and she straightened her skirt, taking the punishment patiently, which only soured it. 

He touched the bridge of his nose where he was sweating beneath his glasses, exhaled. 

“It’s the system Jack uses. It will look consistent.” 

“I know, Francis,” she replied, sharply, the lift dinging and the two of them stepping into the comforting sterility of the studio. He’d suffered the small talk, and now came the part where he was at least more secure in his performance.

It was too much she asked, trotting him out at Jacks’ behest while he honeymooned, but he would take the bloody pictures. 

Thomas moved past him, going straight to the staged area where he set down the two camera cases and kit, barking orders to the two unfortunate men manning the lights. He could smell the fry of dust coming off of them - the harsh buzz of the fluorescents above. It was freezing. 

The only person who looked up when he came in was James Fitzjames. He looked up in the mirror he was stationed at where George was fitting his hair with papers and flat clips as he marcelled the front. They met eyes, briefly, and Francis nodded at him, recommitting himself to whatever Sophia was saying as she motioned him to the long table and racks that a man was hunched behind. The tan check print accenting it all was unmistakable. 

“Edward,” she called, and a square faced handsome man emerged. He was somewhere in his thirties, with a mess of brown hair and impeccable posture, and to Francis’ further amusement and somewhat relief, clad in a fussy three piece suit.

“This is Francis Crozier.” 

Edward Little’s eyes widened in recognition and he extended his hand over the table, his grip strong but clammy when Francis met it. It was obvious at once that Edward Little was a rarer sort in his profession - those that cultivated all the skill, but none of the ego. The sort that was prone to bullying at the hands of his peers, but probably didn’t ascertain a great deal of it. 

“An honor. I’m a long time admirer of your work,” he said in a clear, stolid voice, nearly monotone, that didn’t match the strain in his dark eyes. “The girls in Dior on the playground - from your ‘61 book, I believe - I have a print of that.” 

“Is that Cerrutti?” Francis asked as their hands parted, ignoring the praise and nodding at his waistcoat. Edward looked down at himself and then back up. 

“Armani, his apprentice. He’s the only tailor I trust, outside of Hong Kong.”

“Strong words coming from you,” Francis was beginning to espouse, a slow feed of the line to Edward, who was more suited to be his ally than any of them. 

“Hong Kong?” 

They looked over to where James was now stood up, George having finished, and coming over to them at speed. He slid his eyes to Edward and tilted his head, having walked around the racks of wardrobe and stopping beside the designer. He prodded his arm playfully. 

“Ned, you should tell me next time you go that way - I love China.” 

“I wouldn’t count on him leaving any time soon, being newly promoted,” Francis remarked sullenly. 

Fitzjames’ eyes narrowed slightly, but he maintained his glib smile, holding out his slender-fingered, elegant hand for Francis to take in his own paw. 

“Like Ned was saying, it’s an honor,” he said, Francis squeezing his hand once and then pulling away. “I’m quite fond of the one he was describing myself.”

“How many styles are we shooting?” Francis asked Edward, stepping over Fitzjames’ conspicuous traps of reminiscing, no doubt to draw some sort of comparison. He didn’t need to stumble around blindly just to be told that he was stuffy, or that his approaches were gauche. 

“Eight,” Sophia answered. “We’ll narrow to five.” 

“I’m gunning for a cover,” Fitzjames said frankly, even though the thought was ludicrous, still staring at Francis as he spoke. Francis’ brow crawled together and he traced his figure in the thin robe he wore. Sophia chuckled. 

“Come back as a girl, Jamie, and I’ll let you have whatever cover you like,” she smiled, whatever injoke passed between them lost on Francis as he rolled his eyes and teethed at his lip. 

“We’ll brief in a few minutes, gentlemen. I’d like to test with whatever will be featured most and we’ll move along from there.” 

He didn’t wait for Edward to confirm, or for Fitzjames to insidiate him further, simply walked over to where Thomas had the camera ready. 

*

It was meant to be a photoshoot, but what was unfolding was the verbal equivalent of a bare knuckle boxing match. At first, Francis believed himself to be the referee, but with each volley between him and Fitzjames - blasted, incorrigible, ridiculous Fitzjames - across the floor he was being drawn into the fight at an alarming rate. 

The sarcastic respect the model claimed for him, for _any_ of his work, was false and every fraught minute that he was forced to remain compliant to his whims proved it. 

“This is ridiculous!” Francis bellowed, moving out from behind the camera. He’d exercised restraint for hours, tolerating every _suggestion_ that Fitzjames made, every insipid little alteration he inclined towards whether to the set, or to the posing, or the configuration of himself and Bella, or to the integrity of the garments themselves.

Francis, at Sophia’s heeding, at Edward’s cowed pleading expressions in the face of Fitzjames’ indomitable ego, played his part with all his forbearance applied. He suffered along, gritting his teeth to a powder, knowing full well that the overwrought ‘narrative’ Fitzjames was trying to apply (to impress him? as a farce?) to the images did nothing but rob them of any potency. 

At first he blamed it on his age; Fitzjames was younger than Francis by a great deal. His experience, though earned, by industry standard, was insubstantial. His kick to international favoritism being recent and after a far longer career steeped in the purgatory of commercial gigs as he clawed his way up to the lofty realms of editorials. In short, he brushed most of it off because he knew that he had no idea what the fuck he was talking about.

As the day progressed, and Fitzjames’ _artistic license_ grew bolder and more liberally applied, Francis was met with flagrant disregard for his opinion, no matter how loudly he shouted it to try and steer the shoot back to something sane. 

By the time he insisted that he take his clothes off it had evolved into something else entirely. It was pointed. The irreverence, _hollow_ irreverence, was a mock of what Francis had built his craft upon. 

“It will be interesting,” Fitzjames countered, daring Francis to intervene further into his sphere. His plan was outrageous. To strip, and have the two of them - for Francis couldn’t forget the girl, the poor girl staring between them all, hardly knowing a word of English - hold the coats to themselves without putting them on. 

“It’s cheeky. A play on flashing,” Fitzjames continued, looking emptily to Edward who was statuesque in his chair, a horrified onlooker. 

“It’s crude!” Francis snapped and Fitzjames glared at him, his former indifference shed for true anger. 

“We haven’t even tried it, how would you even know!”  
  
“Because I’ve been in this business for thirty bloody years!” Francis shouted, feeling his face redden. “And I’m due the final word, as a senior to you, and responsible for what comes of this!”

“To who? To me?” Fitzjames laughed. He gestured at himself, his hair flicking from his face, and Francis’ fist balled at his side. He trained his eyes on Francis with laser focus, as though there were no one else in the room.

“Everyone knows you’re only here for her.” 

Francis watched, horrified, as Fitzjames pointed his long arm across the room, to where Sophia was sat in a chair against the wall. At the direct address, she tightened her arms across her chest, a faint blush climbing up her neck. 

“Everyone knows it!” Fitzjames went on, ignoring the tension in the room as it ratcheted up to unendurable degrees. Francis’ own head was pounding, his eyes registering the world in crackles of furious static. “I’m not going to _k_ _ow-tow_ to you just because you used to be relevant. _You’re_ the one who doesn’t want to work. You’re not here for _work_. You’ve handed the bloody shutter off to your assistant!” 

Francis was welded to the floor as Fitzjames continued, his arm swinging out at everyone in the room. 

“These people showed up to _work_ , and all you do is sit there, barking orders behind your camera without even looking through it, jabbing us into poses that say nothing about anything! So what’s the difference?”

“It’s respect for the garment!” Francis shouted. 

“Don’t tell me you care about the garments, because you don’t. You couldn’t care less. And you don’t care about me, so why the bloody hell not just take it all off! At least it would be a laugh!”

“I won’t be lectured by some spoiled postulant,” Francis spit, every syllable lisping out of his mouth in a furious hiss, and for a brief second, the brash insolence cowered in Fitzjames, only to roar back anew. 

“Because I have the gall to say what I think to the great _Francis Crozier_?”

There were times Francis heard his name said in such a way. In front of newspaper editors, and publishers, and the monolith of authority that for years told him he was either too much or, quite plainly, nothing. Acerbic. Waterlogged with the temerity of less capable men. Men he knew were not as good as he was, whose photographs were ineffectual and impotent and out of touch with the realities of the worlds they reported on. 

For years he was told no, that the pictures he took of the streets, _real_ photography - photography of real people, with real expressions, real souls, wearing _real_ clothes - were contemptuous and derisive to the art. He was lazy, technically inept.

For years his name was spoken down to him. John Franklin, principal among such times… and now.

He seethed. 

James Fitzjames was least of all. Those men, even Franklin, to their credit, were established. James Fitzjames did nothing but hawk himself, throwing himself at the feet of false idols, a pantheon of notables, actresses, politicos, _designers_ , the most notoriously disloyal of all, and after all the fawning and petting and reverie had the audacity to confidently call himself an artist. 

“You’ve no clue,” he whispered, trying to reign in the full blast of his temper, “who I am.”

“Don’t I?” James jeered, but his eyes were flint. “You're acting like a failure of your former self.” 

“Edward, if you don’t say something to defend your own fucking coat to him!” Francis yelled, his resolve crumbling. Still Edward Little looked to where Fitzjames was still wearing the trench. 

His voice was halting. 

“... I wished it would speak on its own, Francis. The work.” 

“Then what the hell am I here for,” Francis murmured. “To document this _experiment_?” He shook his head.

“Francis,” Sophia rushed, trying to stop him as he began breaking down the equipment, Thomas automatically doing the same. Francis pried the back off the camera and scooped the film out. He dug in the kit for the canister, shuttling it away and pressing it into her startled hands. 

“See what you can salvage,” he bit, “for your _publication_ , Miss Cracroft.”

*

He released Thomas for the week as soon as he was back to his rooms. He didn’t like to shout at the boy, who out of all of them never left his side, butThomas pressed too hard at times where the wounds were too raw for him to cope with. 

Guilt came on quickly, and shame followed at its heels, and so there was nothing else to do. He considered phoning her, to make a soapy apology, but it was too egregious for him to do over the phone. It wasn't her fault that he'd been paralyzed, and she hadn't. 

He was several fingers deep into the gin - the last of the tolerable spirits drank away, spent, and the whiskey the night before in pitiful assurance to himself - when he heard the pounding on the door. It was the front entrance to the studio, the double doors rattling in their frames with each insistent knock.

It frightened him at first, as it was late, and he lived on the wrong end of Regents Park Road and he felt the urge to hide, but then there was a strange sound and he worried that the glass set into the door threatened to break if whoever was so bent on getting his attention kept at it. 

He crept through the studio, down the stairs, flicking on lights as he went, the glass still clutched in his hand, which was a pain given the locks on the door. 

When he opened it, he was expecting Thomas. Perhaps Sophia. 

He did not expect to see James Fitzjames, in the Burberry trench coat, hovering on the stoop, swaying slightly. The embers of his earlier anger stoked in his belly at just the sight of him, and instead of recoiling the recognition drew Fitzjames stupidly closer, into the haze of the outside light, the sconce laced by spiderwebs and littered with the corpses of moths.

“Took you bloody long enough,” Fitzjames sneered, shouldering past him and into the empty front hall before Francis had any chance to stop him. 

“Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing?” Francis spat back, holding the door open. “Get off my property!” 

Fitzjames ignored him, and as he walked, Francis could see that he had been drinking, though how much he was indeterminate. He listed side to side, looking up and around like he was searching for something. 

When Francis’ threats became more present he finally stopped, turning on his heel, but the inveterate stubbornness from earlier in the day was captive on his face. 

“I begged your address,” he began, voice liquor rough, “off the receptionist. At Vogue. She said you were still here.” 

“Of course I’m still here!” Francis cried, finally shutting the door when it felt absurd to keep it open. At the distance, his voice echoed, sounding more frantic than he wanted it to. “Where else would I be?!”  
  


Fitzjames shrugged noncommittally. 

“Hell?”  
  


“Get the fuck out of my house,” Francis repeated, taking a cautious step towards the man who merely stood in the middle of the hall, his eyes still rolling around to the walls and even up to the ceiling. He began to chuckle, his hand coming to cover his mouth, and his eyes darted to Francis again. He cleared his throat, one finger still lingering near the odd deep lines running alongside his wicked mouth, drawing Francis’ attention there, unwanted. 

He was blushing. 

“You seemed bent on taking me out earlier. I mean, really giving me one,” he said, and he took the same hand and folded it into a fist which he tapped against his jaw illustratively. His mouth was worming about, trying not to smile as he did so. “I suppose I wanted to see what might happen.”

“I’m not going to _hit_ you,” Francis replied, marveling at the unbelievable presumption. 

A smile flowered on Fitzjames’ face and Franics was momentarily taken aback. He had charmingly crooked teeth. He shook the observation off. 

  
“This is - this is insane. Get out of my house.” 

“Hear me out,” Fitzjames interrupted, lifting a hand, staying Francis’ refutes before he made them. 

“I’ve never been hated before. I was curious.” 

Francis leveled him with a look of complete disbelief. 

“I won’t be made a fool of.” 

“What’s that you’re drinking,” Fitzjames said, nodding toward the glass, glossing over Francis’ growling. 

“Gin.” 

His eyes sparked greedily. Francis shifted his fingers on the glass, uncertain. 

“May I have some?”

*

“You shouldn’t let people egg you on that way,” Fitzjames said, smacking his lips after his first drink. They were sitting in the studio, at his strange insistence, in two chairs dragged from an empty closet, moonlight casting two neat rectangles on the floor, though Francis opted to position them in the dark for the sake of his eyes. 

He slouched back in his seat, one ankle on his knee, his foot moving restlessly with each word.

“Go fuck yourself,” Francis muttered, taking a deep pull from his own glass while Fitzjames watched him with a nearly diabolical amount of scrutiny, like he was a creature behind plexiglass. 

“I mean it,” he breathed, looking down at the gin and swirling it in the glass. “You shouldn’t bother with what other people think of you.” 

Francis lowered his glass from his mouth, trying to parse anything from the man’s words that would illuminate the reason for this intrusion. 

“ _Why_ are you here,” he asked, point blank, for the upteenth time, though this time he bore the question with more sincerity than the others, and this garnered a more honest reaction from what he could determine.

“Because you acted like a beast,” Fitzjames answered, harsh, looking furtively through his lashes to where Francis sat. He moved his leg so that it was folded the other and sat up straighter, the trench coat open and undone falling about to reveal a plain button up shirt and trousers. 

“And people should tell other people when they’re behaving badly.” 

“What’s it matter to you how I behave?” Francis whispered, his mouth twitching into an awed smile. “I don’t know you from Adam.” 

Fitzjames’ features darkened and he tilted his head back, looking up at the moonlight instead. 

“James,” he muttered, confused by the display, by the man in front of him, by the baseleness of the situation. “It must be something more than a scolding, or a glass of gin, for you to follow me here at two in the morning like a madman.” 

He watched the man stare at the moon, his hair falling about his head, his neck curved into a graceful arch with the way he held it at such an angle. He’d yet to prove much about his character, to whatever amount he possessed, but Francis could admit, from an aesthetic perspective, he had not given James Fitzjames enough acknowledgment for his instrument.  
  


He was very well put together, with legs that seemed to go on forever, and a lean, flexible frame. Beautiful, even. A sin, to have wasted the film on the melodrama.

  
“You don’t keep any of your work up,” Fitzjames said at last, lifting his head, his eyes dizzy from being upside down. 

Francis shook his head, and James’ forehead creased in consternation. 

“That’s despicable,” he muttered to himself and Francis gave a dry chuckle. 

“You say as though it’s an insult to you.” 

“It’s an insult, in general!” James exclaimed and Francis drew away from him slightly, puzzled.   
  


“I meant what I said,” he said firmly, cutting his eyes away. “I do know your work. I was quite excited to get to meet you, professionally.” 

“You have a strange way of showing it,” Francis grumbled, swallowing the last of the gin and letting it radiate through his body pleasantly, his eyes drifting closed. If he remained that way, perhaps it would pass and he’d wake in the morning knowing it was all only a nightmare. 

  
“What was I supposed to do, being let down. You walked in, and it was so clear you were only there because you are still in love with her…” The chair creaked as James shifted in it.  
  


“No,” Francis heard himself say, his eyes blinking open. “No.” 

“No?”

“I’m not in love with her - I was,” he sighed. “I was, once, yes. But now. Not now.” 

It's an admission to himself as well as Fitzjames. He is not in love with her anymore. He doesn’t know when he stopped, and it terrifies him. It’s another crack to the hull, another bruise to bear as time knocks into him. 

Fitzjames was silent, his eyes wide and wild with the new knowledge, staring at him openly. It didn’t surprise him, he’d always assumed that was what others considered, and he did little to correct them. 

“I envy her,” Francis confessed. “Her, and Jack.”  
  
“Ross?” Fitzjames croaked and Francis nodded. 

  
“Yes. I can’t fathom why I’m telling you any of this,” he said, scratching at his temple and smiling curiously. James Fitzjames’s mouth twitched again. 

“They’re able to step away from them, and the time together. This,” he looked at the studio, barren, except for the two of them. “I never could.”

“What to sell the studio?”

“All of it,” Francis whispered. “They stepped out of it. This world. Found other occupations. Other reasons. Worries. Lovers.” 

He looked sadly at Fitzjames. 

“I can’t follow them out. The work I’ve done, the portraits...I see each face and it’s like they’re alive in front of me, so I had to take them down off the walls, put them away. I remember the exact moments,” he brought his hands up, squared his fingers into a makeshift frame, centered it on James Fitzjames’ face. “I wonder where they are, who they are. What they are doing. Total strangers. Lovely girls I saw on the street. Working men. Young people. Models,’ he flinched a smile. “Everyone.” 

He trailed off, and returned his hand to rubbing at his temple. 

“This place used to brimming with people. Each person I photographed, I took a portion of them. I kept it with me. It makes them truer than they are. More real than they are in life. I can’t leave them. Sometimes I think I’d have to burn them all up, just to be free of it…”

James Fitzjames looked at him, unblinking, and then, his mouth opened slightly, his tongue slipping out to wet his bottom lip. 

“If I weren’t such an insufferable brat,” he said, and Francis huffed, but had to cut it short to hear what followed, for it was said very quietly. “How would you photograph me?” 

Francis tilted his head, crossing his arms loosely across his middle, considering. Color dusted on Fitzjames’ cheekbones as he was inspected.

“Is that all you want?” Francis asked, his voice faint. 

Fitzjames nodded, his chest rising and falling hard under his shirt. He folded his hands nervously on his lap. 

“Yes. Very much.” His voice caught slightly, and his eyes were glassy, as though he were about to cry. 

Francis lifted his eyebrows, then bowed his head deferentially. Wordlessly, he heaved himself up out of the chair and looked out over the studio. After a moment of deliberation he quietly set the chair down, placing it with consideration to the light from the window, looking up and back down several times, then stepping back. 

Finished, he turned to Fitzjames, who was spellbound. 

“If you would please,” he said softly, directing towards the chair. James unfolded, setting the glass down on his empty seat and walked slowly across the floor to the other chair, easing down into it.  
  


Francis looked at him, one hand to his mouth, rocking back slightly on his heels.

It came, prenaturally. 

“If you could, stand, and do the coat up, buttoned, to your waist, and then…” 

He walked closer and then beckoned for James to stand once more. James did so, Francis crouching before his subject, carefully doing the buttons up to the waist of his trousers, then took the belt and tied it as tightly as he could. 

He motioned for James to sit down, carefully, at his behest, and configured the rest of the coat so that it was not so easily seen, and the bottom portion loosely resembled the diaphanous skirts of years ago.

“I’m going to fetch my camera, feel free to relax.” 

He found the Pentax, where Thomas left it, and lugged it to the studio where Fitzjames remained obediently. When it was ready he placed it aside, and went to Fitzjames once more. Carefully, he rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows, and unbuttoned the top of his collar, watching him swallow as he did so. 

“No need to be nervous,” he soothed, “you’re making my task very easy.” 

He manipulated James shoulders, canting them as he liked, watching how it shifted the light and played across his decolletage. He smoothed his hair from its muss, toying with the part and bringing it forward to frame his face. Ever gently, he brought his elbow to the back of the chair, showing him how to reproduce the tilt of his hips in the right way, the way to position his legs, the angle of his knees, how to keep his ankles crossed demurely behind the other. 

“Hold, if you please,” he said, bringing the camera to his eye, the weight familiar. An old friend. 

He clicked the shutter. 

“Look down please,” _click_. 

“Your chin,” he moved the camera from his face, showed him with his own head, smiled. 

“Yes. Eyes down again.” _click_. “Lovely, James.” 

“Relax your hand again, my dear.” _click_. “Lovely. Very lovely. This light is remarkable.” 

“Should I wipe my face?” James asked, lifting his head after a few shots, tears blinking down his cheeks as they had been for some time.

“No, I wish to try a few this way. It’s as if you’re shedding pearls in this light!” Francis said loudly, the calm composure of his voice slipping in favor of pure excitement. 

James suddenly dropped his chin to his chest, the knuckles of his pretty hand covering his mouth as he sobbed an unbidden laugh, the sound falling down about Francis’ ears, crystalline. 

The shutter clicked, and James lifted his head again, breathless, tears still streaming from his smiling face. 

“It’s the damndest thing,” he cried, still laughing. “ Each time I hear that sound, it was as if you were kissing me - I couldn't ever get enough."

*

He lives the memory the way one lives a dream. 

As Francis says when he is feeling philosophical, it’s like when putting on an old coat. You’re wearing it right on you, there and then.

With intelligent design even an old rag remains stylish, even in imagination where he is only nineteen years old and so very ignorant of many things (perniciously so) like dressing himself. 

Romance demands embellishments. In recollection he thinks there ought to be platforms and ticketing booths, or great time tables foisted to the walls of the foyer of that place. More appropriate motif, or atmosphere, for a building constantly buzzing with the commotion of a train station; people passing in and out with papers, with cases full of equipment and other luggage, racks of clothes and shoes and crates full of props. 

Behind him the noise from Shepherd Market laps into the front entrance like surf each time the two double doors shudder open and closed on their old hinges. 

  
Instead there is a pretty receptionist who greets him from the school-teacher’s desk centered before a clean white washed wall. She points into the bewildering anthill of the studio complex to the exposed stairwell zig zagging at the far end of the building. 

“Past the dark room, up those stairs - you might find Jack in the office, if not, you’ll hear him shouting!”  
  


“Thank you very much,” he ducks his head appreciatively to her, walking in the direction of her hand, unwilling to ask for further instructions. 

Who would ever want to be told where to go in a place like this? Where every moment you feel as if you are stumbling onto something important, or wonderful, entirely by accident?

He’s there on recommendation, which in and of itself is a happy kind of coincidence. Jack Ross needs a young man with long legs, John Barrow knows a friend who has them.

  
Girls glance up at him as he goes by, comment among themselves; the women regard him cooly, gliding like swans along the polished floor. Men too. Models the lot, he supposes, new waves of ever-hopefuls swelling the premises every twenty minutes like a tide. 

He holds his own portfolio under one arm casual as a salaryman with a newspaper, strolling through the building like a gallery. 

It’s not far off from a proper exhibition, the walls showcasing the work of the studio in uniform black-framed rows. To his surprise it doesn’t play like some gimmick hall of fame. There are celebrities, of course, some editorials: a parade of nameless incarnations of beauty, some more unique in their manifestation than others, but none of them conventional through the lens applied. Most of them are those things which cannot be defined, the mundane and magnificent instances of everyday life with all its characters at play. 

His eyes tick along them, mystified by the fact that human beings were able to devise witchcraft to capture something as startling and slippery as a single moment. The ones he sees are so vivid, so stunning, he can’t help but agree with the old superstitions that the act would hold a part of your soul. 

The door to the dark room is papered with signs of varying degrees of warning when he comes upon it. 

_Dark Room Personnel and Photographers Only_ _  
__Keep Out!_ _  
__Door To Remain Shut At All Times!_ _  
__No Models BEYOND This POINT._

 _NO EXCEPTIONS!_ _  
  
_

Such threats immediately makes him want to grab the latch and throw it open as a thrill, and he wonders how many people have succumbed to the temptation of curiosity to make the postings so aggressive and their implications so personal.

Two men startle him back, coming out as he goes by, both bent over a print and talking animatedly about it. He catches just a corner of it between their shoulders: black and white, slick as a newborn. The scent of chemicals drifts out with them, and strange red light throbs from within, letting him spy long tables and the hint of water shifting in the shallow baths and pans set on top and dripping from the photographs strung on the clothes lines above. 

The door swings back in heavily on its own, shutting him out, but he’s easily distracted tracking the men while they go clanging up the staircases into the waterfalls of light pouring from the two huge sky-facing windows in the ceiling. Their talk floats into the high rafters, lost in the mechanical chatter of shutters, the drum of heels and barked orders. There’s even an actual song from a radio or hi-fi swirling above the cyclone of activity, though the words are inscrutable.

He watches the men from below, the open rails of the lofted upper floor giving him ample view as they turn the landing corner and disappear into a room marked RETOUCH without knocking. A bitter voice inside says _you better have brought up my bloody sandwiches - !_ and then abruptly stifles. James grins.

Laughter ribbons over the edge of the second floor and splashes over his head in a shower - girls giggling, and the unmistakable grin and gallantry of Jack Ross calling “focus, ladies, we’re very nearly through!” 

James takes a nervy swallow, and starts up the steps two at a time. 

He pops up heavenside, now bathed in the halos of sunlight, sweet as milk, shimmering on the floors and wide white backdrop screens. He spots Jack Ross’ sorrel head stooped behind his tripod, two ladies articulating themselves every few seconds on his command. 

“Carla, go as if you’re climbing up that stool - yes! Yes that’s it, right there!” Ross yells, and James can sense why. The girls are wearing opaque tights in bright yellow and bright pink under their printed dresses and the pose draws attention to the smoothness of the fabric as it moves along with the contours of her leg.

“Spectacular girls, just fantastic. If they don’t buy Chemstrand after this, I don’t know what will make them,” Ross continues. straightening up and releasing the two from the purgatory of stillness. James hovers outside the circle of assistants till he’s noticed, Jack turning to him just as he lobs a final goodbye and thank you at the models being ushered towards a back hallway full of dressing rooms. 

“James, isn’t it!” The older photographer sticks out his hand and clasps James’ tightly, clapping him on the shoulder. 

“I very much hope so, or else there’s another tall desperate man wandering around.”

“Either way, you’re just the ticket,” Ross praises, looking James up and down and nodding to himself. He’s clearly excited by what he sees and the recognition kindles in James’ stomach, a smile curling over his mouth. 

“We’ll do a few test shots today and take down your measurements for the trousers, and then we’ll schedule the shoot. Sound alright?”

“Easy as that? Sounds just fine to me,” James agrees as Ross takes the portfolio that James offers from sweating hands. Ross shifts through the photographs, looking more and more pleased. 

“ _You’ve_ made it easy, my friend,” he continues, flipping back and forth between the shots, still nodding his head. “You’re exactly the look they’re going for. These things are going to be some kind of pattern so they need someone with your frame to show it off. Else get a man on stilts, I suppose...” 

James can hardly remember the name of the trouser brand that Ross is scouting for in the wake of all the adulation. Ross slips the photographs carefully back into the envelope and hands them back to James, still smiling and then looks at him again with a bolt of recognition. 

  
“Oh, yes, here,” he snaps, whistling for a junior who looks up from changing out the film in the camera Ross was just behind. He can’t be any more than sixteen, with a clear face and dark hair deeply parted shaking loose over his forehead after trotting over.

“Tommy, can I steal you for a moment?”

The boy glances at his wrist watch. 

“I have about ten minutes, then I have to assist with Ms Cracroft,” he says in a prim, schooled tone, looking at Ross expectantly. 

“ _Sophia_ Cracroft?” James blurts, and the envelope holding his own pictures suddenly crinkles in his fingers. 

He’s instantly mortified with himself for saying the name out loud, but he isn’t sure how else he would react, otherwise. The model’s face is one of the most prolific amongst the stack of other editorial pictures he’s carved from the pages of _Vanity Fair_ and _Vogue_ since he was old enough to hold scissors in his hand. 

He knew, peripherally, that she floated in and amongst these circles (Barrow and Ross and the other _swinging_ socialites of London were a murky pool), but the fact that he was more adjacent to her than he previously imagined leaves him reeling.

Since the day she appeared on the newsrack he’d been half in love with the look of her. Sophie C., with her large dollish eyes and tumbles of blonde hair sprawled across fashion magazines, playful and pretty as a wish, showing off the delicate arcs of her limbs that came to shocking sharp points at her elbows and knees before melting into the finest bones of her hands and feet and face. He knew she was discovered when her uncle, John Franklin, brought her to a photographer. He’d never put the two and two together, before. 

How often he’d tried to emulate her expressions in the privacy of his bedroom, how he’d stare at the photographs of her and compose his body this way and that, trying to make himself look as she did: lithe and lighter than air, sparkling. Ideal, in every manner. 

To his relief Ross only winks at him. The boy’s eyes flick to James and his arched dark eyebrow twitches slightly in suspicion, but otherwise betrays no other reaction. 

“That’s plenty of time,” Ross says, patting the boy on the shoulder, “could you show James here the coat room to put his things up and find someone to take down his measurements if you can’t later?” 

“That’s fine, yes,” Tommy agrees, and then looks directly at James with unwavering professionalism. 

“If you’ll follow me, right this way,” he directs, flashing a tight smile and beckoning James down the hall. He doesn’t look up as he walks, looking at his watch instead and James looks around to cover his still residual embarrassment. He pretends he isn’t looking for _her_ , either, but his heart already beating at an unnatural rhythm. 

“Does Sophia Cracroft come here often?” James says, managing to get about three steps into the walk before his resolve crumbles to bits. He tries to sound flippant, unconcerned with the answer, but the boy sees right through his bluff. 

  
He purses his lips a little, looking over his shoulder and then back ahead.

“She likes our work, yes,” he says cryptically, checking his watch and hurrying them on. 

“Ross’?”

The boy - Tommy - shakes his head with a private gleam in his eye, coming to a small closet filled with racks of clothes. He clicks the overhead light on with a tug on the chain and motions for James to step inside, pulling a hanger down for his jacket. 

“No, Francis Crozier. He owns the studio.” 

He waits patiently for James to shrug out of his coat and hand it over.

“Francis Crozier…,” James repeats quietly to himself, wracking his brain before a flash of a memory bearing that name strikes him. “Wait, wasn’t he a war correspondent or something?” 

  
“He did contract with the MoD during the war, that’s correct,” Tommy says, putting the jacket up and ripping a ticket off of a long spool nailed to the shelves. He tears it in half, sticking one end in the front pocket and handing the other to James. 

“That’s right,” James murmurs, taking it and slipping the little square into his trousers. “Was he the one who did that tragic picture of the girl? With that bear?” 

“That was Cecil Beaton,” Tommy says blandly, in a way that convinces James it’s a question he’s been forced to answer many times before. 

“Right, right,” James mutters, rounding with him as he makes for the door. “He does? What? Regular photography now?” 

“Primarily advertisement, and private bookings,” Tommy clips, leading him out of the coat room and back out into the studio space again. There’s a man pulling a large sliding door across the floor on a track, dividing the room into two portions, with Jack and his setup on one side and whoever it is - Crozier maybe - on the other. “I’ll have Billy take your measurements, when you’re through with Mr Ross, he should be back from his lunch in the next minute or so -.” 

“Thomas? Come get this light up if you would please!” 

The sound curves around the partition, a raspy brush like the smoothed bristles of a push broom on the floor, and Tommy excuses himself hastily, jogging around the wall and dissolving into sunbeams. 

It’s midway through the test shoot when Ross stops and frowns at the Fitzjames, tapping on the tripod’s metal leg. 

“Wait here just a second,” he says, and James resigns himself to waiting, his heel bouncing on the floor as he watches Ross go bounding off to the other half of the studio. 

He materializes a few moments later with an older fellow in tow; he’s a shorter man, compact, but handsome in his own way. Unlike Ross and all the other men rushing about in jeans or corduroys, he wears a well tailored white shirt and black tie. James supposes it’s a whole suit, but the jacket is missing, the man’s sleeves rolled up to his elbows from working in the bright sun on the other side of the wall. 

“I couldn’t even tell you what I don’t like about it,” Ross says, stepping slightly aside to let the older man closer to the camera. James tries not to fidget as they speak to each other, watching Crozier lean down to examine him through the viewfinder.

He lifts his head almost immediately.

“You may relax for now, Mr. Fitzjames,” he lilts, the same voice as before, only here, with it so much closer, James gets the feel for how clear it is and how warm. There’s a sweetness to it, but not like sugar. Like pure vanilla. 

James’ mouth parts slightly but he nods. He folds his hands on his lap, and Crozier continues to look at him over the camera, his eyes fair and sure even at this distance. The sun strikes him unevenly where he stands, turning his hair near silver for how pale it is, but his face remains quietly in cooler shadow, the features rounded and soft edged like an old marble statue. One brow arcs, just a twitch, and James lets his shoulders drop. 

“Much better.” Crozier’s mouth carves a little deeper into a satisfied smile as he speaks and the combination of the words and the pleased expression make James’ throat go dry and his ears go so hot they feel like they’re ringing. He looks up, away, shocked with himself, but Crozier just lets his gaze drop benignly back to his. 

James can’t keep his eyes off of him for long. He fusses with something on the camera, his fingers square and his palms broad but they are nimble and exact as he adjusts the dial before ducking back to look through again. Back and forth, and each time he reappears from behind the tripod James can _feel_ the weight of his eyes parsing over the lines and planes of him, making sense of the geometry that puts him together. 

Ross views it with a student’s rapt attention, his arms over his chest. When Crozier steps away from the camera James sees his eyes narrow like a scope on the actions he takes. He crosses in front of James, adjusting the lights and shields, metal screws being tightened and loosened as he manipulates them. Then he circles behind James and James registers the same broad hand touching lightly on his shoulder. 

“If you could stand up?”

James goes to his feet. Crozier picks the stool up in one hand with his other still on James’ back he sets it down a few feet in front of where it was previously. 

“Here you are young man,” he motions for James to turn and James climbs back on the stool once more, facing ahead. “Shoulders up. Thank you.”

James straightens his back and then Crozier takes his chin in one hand and the back of his neck in the other, guiding them forward towards the lens. James holds his breath, keeping his eyes firmly ahead, blinking rapidly so that the energy he feels scouring his insides doesn’t come gasping out of his chest. He’s never felt so seen in all his life, as though Crozier can look right into him, to the pulp of his heart. 

If he can see exactly what he’s exposed, he doesn’t let on, his kind face calm to a fault. 

“I’ll have you lean like this, for a moment,” Crozier says, going back to the camera. 

James makes a short sound to affirm he heard him. 

“Arms wherever you like for now, my dear,” he said, in a way that told Fitzjames that it was a habit, but to him, all the same - 

_Click_. 

“Lovely.” It was like being kissed. 

*  
  


He’s told Francis of it, of course, of their orbits with each other, the call to move into the vacancy that others left behind and Thomas kept tidy, towing the world behind him whether Francis liked it or not, refusing to let him dissolve into oblivion, descending angry as an angel upon him. 

Francis asserts that it didn’t happen for he doesn’t remember it, and he remembers everything. He’d certainly remember something so formative to James, personally and professionally.

Francis is an older man, so he’s forgiving. 

Reincarnation James posits, ruefully. One of his past lives, if nothing else, as he’s always coming back again, and again, these days. Each time Francis looks at him, each time the shutter blinks him in and out of existence and welcomes him back as a new creature, the sly tricks the light pulls to fool the eye into seeing what is true. 

  
Like the time he wept pearls (how positively _couture._ delicious.)

  
If there’s any doubt to the magic, well.  
  
  
There are photographs to prove it.

**Author's Note:**

> some research notes for your personal pleasure:
> 
> 1) francis' studio is based off john cole's celebrated 'studio five', a foundational location for london's 'swinger' fashion scene. his career was based on the iconic work of terence donovan & fellow irishman brian duffy. james clark ross, as the most handsome man in the navy, is of coursed modeled after third member of the so-called 'black trinity' and famed british vogue photographer david bailey.
> 
> 2) anne ross' wedding dress is based on [this fantastic ysl gown from 1964](https://64.media.tumblr.com/378203b998dfe4fa0fffa198961c9e9c/tumblr_nr48hsfzjY1s42zyno1_640.jpg)
> 
> 3) the pentax 67 image was the favored camera of terence donovan, who also dressed exclusively in suits, a fact which set him apart from his two cohorts. the pentax is described as a heavy, burly camera with no electronic components. 
> 
> 4a) halston built the fashion of new york city in the 70s from the feet up. his designs for women were focused on freedom of movement, and constant reinvention and inovation of existing designs till they were perfected. his halstonettes were his traveling entourage who accompanied him on trips, served as his primary models, and also his muses. 
> 
> 4b) halston and charles james had a brief friendship which ended in rivalry when charles james (an english-american designer) accused halston of stealing his design. ironically, dior accused charles james of stealing designs so WHO KNOWS!
> 
> 5) the 'war' thomas is referring to was the 1973 "battle at versailles" where 5 american designers solidified their place in the global fashion community as independent from the newly de-throned french houses. up until that point haute couture was a singular french export and american designers such as barrow, halston, blass, klein and thomas' favorite, de la renta, were wildly unacknowledged. 
> 
> 6) balenciaga was is, and ever shall be, the king
> 
> 7) von furstenberg's wrap dress iconified the 70s working woman and remains one of the most popular styles of all time due to its universal flattery, customizable fit, powerful prints, and blended durable fabric.
> 
> 8) armani broke from the cerrutti brand in 1974 to start his own house - while cerrutti revolutionized menswear in the early fifties, giorgio armani is singular in his position as one of the finest tailors of men's clothing. he contributed many innovations and his democratic approach to marketing and collaborating with manufacturers changed the industry forever. 
> 
> 9) the photo edward references is based on this [this](https://pleasurephotoroom.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/vogue-jun-1961-photo-brian-duffy.jpg?w=686&h=1024)similar image by duffy from1961


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